10 | Between the Temples
Every year, it is my trial to suffer through 7 or 8 films that the powers that be have anointed with the odious term “quirky.” I do this running on the fumes of past years’ pleasures, with the knowledge that at one point, a fellow named Wesley in Houston walked down from the mount and set a Christlike example for any who trod such territory. Fitting that one of his cadre, Mr. Jason Schwartzman, leads one of the most worthy films in that tradition. Schwartzman, who through volume and talent is likely the preeminent grace of 2024’s silver screen, here brings undeniable star presence to a role in which one would not expect to find it. Double ditto for Carol Kane, who has made a career out of good-humored kookiness, which she uses here as an assassin wields a garrote. The specificity of the scenario laid herein evinces such humor and poignancy, as to become almost unbearable. Best enjoyed with a mudslide in hand. Cantor Gottlieb would have it no other way. – JS
9 | Anora
Sean Baker’s twisted take on the Ernst Lubitsch screwball results in the year’s funniest film with some biting social criticism and the most emotionally devastating ending of the year. Baker’s depiction of sex work comes across genuine with the film allowing for moments of joy and excitement before inevitable implosion of Ani’s new lifestyle. An all time contender for men are trash cinema: Anora represents what American cinema can accomplish without the razzle dazzle of the Hollywood blockbuster spectacle. Lots of love for the cast here but Mikey Madison really gives one of those “oh my god this is a movie star” performances that makes you so damn excited for the future of cinema. – CW
8 | Dune: Part 2
After carefully setting the board and putting the players in motion in 2021’s Dune Part 1, The Golden Path to Dune Part 2 finally came to fruition this year, returning moviegoers to sand-swept Arrakis. Free to focus on the action-packed back half of the story, Denis Villeneuve demonstrated his prowess at stunning sci-fi setpieces from weightless Harkonnen hunters and the immense power of Shai Hulud to an unsettling glimpse of Geidi Prime. For all the action and excitement present, Part 2 also starts to weave in the more religious themes of its source material, as the prophetic seeds of Part 1 sprout into a full-fledged religious fervor. The adaptation makes some smart choices in expanding the role of Zendaya’s Chani, providing a counterpoint to the intensity of the Jihad and all its coming consequences. Consequences that will be explored in the forthcoming Dune Messiah, which if Part 2 is any indication, I know we’ll be seeing among the top films of 2026, no prescience required. -NA
7 | Here
We were graced this year with a Zemeckis creation finally able to rival the Polar Express in uncanny valley horrors with Here, featuring Tom Hanks AI de-aged into a small child. After that terror passes, you can find a real treat of experimental blockbusting, as Zemeckis cements film’s unique ability to capture the passing of time, particularly for one American home throughout the ages. Here jumps between the many families and momentous historical occasions that have occupied the frame, tweaking its contents for every new addition, or phasing back to older, but no more simpler, times. A paen to the spaces we occupy as time marches on, we’re free to watch as these characters live lives full of ambitions, hopes, fears, triumphs, and setbacks. An epic of human life and nature viewed through pinholes, we’ll probably never see another narrative experiment on this scale, but we can rest assured that it will always be Here. -NA
6 | Do Not Expect Too Much From The End of the World
Very much A Film About How We Live Now, Radu Jude’s followup to the discombobulating Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is a cinematic tour de force, a rollicking three hour trek through Budapest packed with enough allusions, quotations, and cultural signifiers to make a Film Studies professor’s head spin. Our protagonist is Angela, an intrepid production assistant working gigs in commercial video as she tries to break into entertainment. We watch as she shares a laugh on-set with Uwe Boll, makes shock value TikToks that manage to outdo Andrew Tate in their vulgar misogyny, and coerces injured factory employees into making promotional materials for the company that harmed them in scenes that do Safdie/Fielder’s The Curse better than The Curse. Imagine post-’68 Godard, if he was really, really fucking funny. One of the key time capsules of our age. – RJ
5 | Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
What a lovely year it was to return to the peculiarly Australian apocalypse of George Miller’s Mad Max series! Shifting its focus from the titular Max to Fury Road’s Furiosa, the new perspective helps to flesh out the wasteland and the poor souls fighting to survive its own brand of vehicular mayhem. While there’s always the worry that a prequel (or sequel) might only serve to dilute the original, Furiosa manages to stand on its own, giving us an origin story as grimy and high-octane as its predecessor. Anya Taylor-Joy helps shape the toughness and simmering anger her character would come to embody across car chases, quarry shoot-outs, and an instance of convoy combat you won’t find elsewhere. The world may not have been ready for the darkest of angels, but there’s no doubt that this will be fondly remembered amongst action aficionados in the years to come (provided we don’t all end up on the Fury Road). -NA
4 | Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point
Tyler Taormina’s peculiar brand of surrealistic suburban ethnography reaches new heights with his very unorthodox take on the Christmas film, a kaleidoscopic family hangout that channels American Graffiti by way of The Dead as it keeps broadening and broadening and broadening in scope. Continuously stylistically inventive (the Santa drive-by! those opening credits! that shot of Mom looking down on her Daughter!), cast to the gills with memorably-faced nonactors, and gloriously scored by the exact soundtrack of Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising – American independent cinema hasn’t given me a movie I’ve purely enjoyed this much in a long, long time. This is one to be savored; probably the best Christmas movie ever made. – RJ
3 | Challengers
For a recovering contrarian, the siren song of a universally-acclaimed film, beloved by zoomers and wizened arthouse veterans alike, is enough to tempt one to throw in their hard-fought critical sobriety. But the latest confection from Signor Guadagnino, through an accumulation of dizzying excellence and stylistic verve, forces even the most severe to bend the knee, perhaps two. Many flowers must be laid at the feet of its central triumvirate. Zendaya. Josh O’Connor. Mike Faist. Remove one player, and the work would be infinitely diminished. To watch them cavort, scheme, lust, and above all else, play to the blissful beat of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is what it means to love the movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, indeed. – JS
2 | Hard Truths
Mike Leigh’s long awaited return to the big screen comes at a time of heightened apathy towards our fellow man and an increase in the fear of the other. No film this year spoke more to our current moment than the devastating Hard Truths. Marie Jean Baptiste delivers the performance of a lifetime through Pansy: a chronically unhappy individual that feels frighteningly familiar to anyone who has dealt with mental illness. Tip-toeing on the line between laughter and tears Leigh peels back the layers of Pansy through increasingly stressful sequences culminating in an open ending rich for interpretation. The cast here is as good as we have come to expect from Leigh and the late great Dick Pope captures the mundanity of 21st century life perfectly. A remarkable achievement for a director as accomplished as Mike Leigh to deliver the most culturally relevant and urgent film of the year… well almost the most. -CW
1 | Juror #2
Defying the apparent swan song of Cry Macho and studio interference to keep this from wide theatrical release, Clint Eastwood returns with a courtroom drama filled with more tough questions about the justice system than one would expect out of a 93-year old director. In a banner year for Nicholas Hoult, his most complex role was that of Justin Kemp, a recovering alcoholic harboring a secret that could change the outcome of a high profile murder trial. Eastwood and Hoult manage to take us to the same gray areas of morality Kemp explores in trying to reason his way out of the facts in front of him. Borrowing from the great courtroom dramas of the past, Juror No. 2 manages to give us the same highs we’ve come to expect from the deliberation room, while adding a new circumstance that heightens the stakes beyond the defendant’s fate. The constant interplay between Kemp and the and societal forces pushing for their desired outcome makes for riveting drama all the way to its shocking final shot. – NA
It feels a bit cruel to call this film the biggest surprise of the year for me, given it comes from one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of the medium, but please forgive me if I went into the new Eastwood film with a degree of lowered expectations after the relatively scattershot Cry Macho. These concerns were quickly dashed, however, by the masterful narrative modulations and relentless screw-turning of Juror No. 2, a film that can stand toe-to-toe with the very best of Eastwood’s 21st century filmography. First-time (!) screenwriter Jonathan Abrams’ broad, generous portrait of the diverse American community brings John Ford to mind, and Clint’s trademark ambiguous probing of moral questions has hardly ever felt this legitimately thought-provoking. That is to say nothing of the never-better Nicholas Hoult’s astonishingly internal performance; the scene in which he confesses an untruth to Zoey Deutch has moved me to tears on multiple viewings. – RJ
What a pleasure it is to occupy a world in which not only Clint Eastwood exists, but is continually resurrected to such a degree as to verge on parody. I sit here joyous at the fact that I get to write yet another dispatch on Clint Eastwood’s “final film.” And not one of those fuddy-duddy last films that is regarded distantly as “handsome.” On the contrary, Juror No. 2 is the work of a vital filmmaker. Clint’s voice as an actor and a director has been one imbued with an unmistakable authority which is what grants his consistent and unblinking critiques of figures and institutions of power such immutable gravitas. Here he is in dialogue with one of the most seminal of American films, 12 Angry Men, but he refashions its politics for our age of ever-retreating virtue. Indeed, the thesis of Eastwoodian aesthetics has long been the compromises individuals make between morality and reality. He is not one for trivial matters and the utmost seriousness with which his watchful eye treats what could appear to be a pulpy, Grisham-lite formula, culminates in an ending that challenges any viewer to assess their own complicity in the erosion of righteousness. – JS
As I grow older, I come to the realization that our lives are built on the discovery of small pieces of knowledge that must meld together to create the pillars of each of our individual beings. They can be as small as recognizing the benefits of consuming room temperature water or as large as the desire to help our fellow man through kindness and compassion. The most important discovery I have used in everyday life decisions and perhaps the one piece that has truly broken the dam on the fountain of knowledge at the core of humanity is the trust in filmmaker Clint Eastwood. Juror #2 stands alongside a slew of masterpieces from the director that speak to the extraordinary capabilities of the human race and the immense complexities of what it means to be alive. Astonishing performances, career best work from the Joel and David Cox editing team, and a stupidly great script from Jonathan Abrams contribute to an extraordinary accomplishment for the 94-year old maestro who defies all expectations with a somber drama about the human experience. – CW
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